Vietnamese man who tried to row 2000km from Thailand to India to see wife taken into custody

News Desk

A Vietnamese man who tried to row 2,000 kilometres (1,240 miles) from Thailand to India to see his wife was taken into custody after being rescued off the Thai coast, a senior Navy official said.

 Ho Hoang Hung set off from the Thai holiday island of Phuket in an inflatable rubber dinghy, equipped with water and instant noodles but without a navigation system, intending to cross the Bay of Bengal.

A fishing boat found the 37-year-old on Wednesday near the Similan Islands, about 80 kilometers off the Thai mainland, and contacted the Navy’s maritime security that rescued him to safety.

Ho told officials that he was trying to reach his wife, who works in Mumbai, after spending two years apart because of Covid-19 travel restrictions, confirmed Captain Pichet Songtan of the Thai Maritime Enforcement Command Centre.

Pichet said the man was found with no map, compass, GPS or additional clothes. He only carried a limited amount of water. He had initially flown to Bangkok but found that without a visa he could not travel on to India.

Thus he took a bus to Phuket, where he acquired the dinghy. After setting off around March 5, Ho was apparently held up by headwinds, hence only making a limited progress in the two weeks before he was found.

Pichet said Ho will be returned to Phuket for further questioning. “We have contacted the Vietnamese embassy as well as Indian embassy but have not had a reply yet,”